Many people have portable music devices such as an MP3 player, a Microsoft® Zune™ device, or other portable music players, and many of those devices contain hundreds or thousands of songs in their owners' personal music collections. With such large music collections, selecting songs to listen to becomes a challenge. Users want to listen to different songs at different times, but often do not have the time or inclination to repeatedly select songs to play from their personal collection. Also, it is difficult for users to select songs on the move with portable devices, such as when jogging or driving.
Current music players provide a “shuffle” function, which randomly selects songs for playback. This is a basic and simplistic solution that is very limited in its ability to satisfy users' requirements in changing songs. In general, the shuffle function provides users with no real control over what is played.